


Guttitim

by OrphanText



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguably vague plots, Gen, General, Magic Realism, Paranormal, Possible Character Death, Supernatural - Freeform, Tragedy, what are these tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 03:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrphanText/pseuds/OrphanText
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They came with the rain, and they went away with it. All of them fell, and none of them stayed. Except for one, really, and John can’t understand. Maybe he never will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guttitim

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted something short and surrealistic but it sounded better in my head obviously. Can I blame it on my food poisoning if it isn’t that good?

If you’ve seen rain, then surely you must have seen them too. They exist only in the rain, and everyone _must_ have seen rain in their lifetime before. And if you haven’t…

 

“John? What are you doing outside?” A woman’s voice calls shrilly from the kitchen, echoed by a voice that he recognized as his sister’s. “Come back in right now!”

 

He lingers, for a second more, caught in the middle of the storm, both hands raised to catch the falling rain on upturned palms.

 

Well, if you haven’t, little John reckons that you just need to live for a little longer, and look up every once in a while.

 

* * *

 

None of the adults would listen to him.

 

To John, they were an occurring presence as sure as the sun, always present so long as there was rain. It was a law of nature, just as the sun would rise, and people will die. Not that he knew of that when he was young, of course. Back then, it only mattered that they were there, not much of the why and the how.

 

He never understood, what they were, or why his adults never listened, never seeming to see them the way he could. His fascination with the weather, as his parents would put it, expressions pinched with a not quite smile that he came to learn was exasperation, would wear off with his age, hopefully. It was just a phase of growing up with children and their overactive imagination. And hopefully it would wear off soon.

 

He could teach you to spot them, if you asked him to. Patience was the key, as was time, perched before the window just as the wind picks up and the clouds gather darkly overhead to wait for the first drops of rain to fall. And there they would be, multitudes of little men dressed in solemn black mingling with the raindrops, and falling to the crash of thunder and howling wind.

 

The trick was to catch sight of one of them from the corner of your eye, and teaching yourself to recognize them for what they were, cut out like black and white grainy miniatures from a page in a book somebody has forgotten a long time ago.

 

If they were people, or anything alive, John wouldn’t know. Falling was all they did, mingling in with the cold raindrops and nearly impossible to see when they were sideways and flat. For one, they were nearly identical to each other, all of them upside down to the world. And they existed, in that split second as they fell as one, amidst the rain, the wind, and the people hurrying home, upon open umbrellas and puddles and leaves. They never said a word, or screamed, and perhaps they were mute, but they were always silent, a shadow of repetition, quiet acceptance to what is their certainty. If they ever made a sound upon hitting the pavement, John never heard it either. And for a second, they would be on the ground, a shadow sidling out of sight, melting into concrete. That was the rule, John supposed. They never really stayed for long, leaving no trace behind.

 

Catching them didn’t work well, the little men simply melting into clear water, sliding away as though they were never there in the beginning and leaving John with wet hands and a baffled face. And he learned not to, eventually.

 

Sometimes, he wondered if they ever got wet. Other times he wondered if they simply returned to the sky to fall down again. And then, when he was older, he wondered if they ever obeyed the concept of dying.

 

He saw less and less of them, eventually. Blame it on growing up, and blame it on life, but by the time he joined the army, they had completely faded away. Perhaps it was simply a childhood thing, but John didn’t quite agree with that theory.

 

He’s seen one of them lately, you know. Just a lone figure against the sky, dark coat flapping behind him like broken wings.

 

And if there was fear, or exhilaration, John will never know. But there he stayed, a dark shape upon the ground until people came and took him away.

 

Once in a while, if you look up on rainy days, you might just be able to see them when the wind picks up, amongst the scurrying pedestrians, and rippling puddles, a still pattern against the sky.

 

If you haven’t, you will one day.

 

London is always raining.

 

Just like today.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally intended for Cataclysmic Week but then I got sick and then the internet wire was completely cut and so here it is now. Would have put it on tumblr but tumblr feels frankly a little unfriendly this week.


End file.
